Coronavirus: Nationals’ shindig ends with cries of double standards

The NSW Nationals’ budget dinner was animated, festive and now a suspected super spreader event.

It was budget day, a milestone on the state’s political calendar, and while residents of Sydney’s eastern suburbs were bunkering down, cancelling plans, avoiding non-­essential gatherings, MPs were preparing for a night of boozing.

The NSW Nationals’ budget dinner was one of several gatherings scheduled for the evening but it was by far the most animated, the most anticipated and festive. It was attended by the highest levels of government and the greatest number of politicians, MPs who had spent the day larking around while Treasurer Dominic Perrottet did the heavy lifting and at night could be found warbling through parliament honking with beer and garlic.

The guest list that evening included the Premier, Deputy Premier and a large swath of cabinet, including Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall, a future agent of disaster who on Thursday tested positive to the Delta strain of the novel coronavirus.

Now a potential super spreader event, the fallout of Marshall’s ­diagnoses plunged parliament into a frenzy.

Gladys Berejiklian at todays Covid briefing. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

MPs and staff underwent rapid testing, rushing themselves into self-isolation. Environment Minister Matt Kean gave televised interviews from a spare bedroom in his home (accompanied by a cat), while Health Minister Brad Hazzard was confined before returning a negative test result during the day. For a few minutes it was even rumoured that the passage of the NSW budget may be jeopardised if Perrottet, who was also tested, found himself forbidden to enter the Legislative Assembly.

Some Nationals officials are also querying the judgment of Marshall and whether he and three of his Nationals colleagues – Trevor Khan, Steph Cooke and Ben Franklin – should have grabbed pizza in the suburb of Paddington while it was named a “red zone” by the NSW government. Scrutiny has similarly been levelled at Gladys Berejiklian, who ­attended the Nationals dinner and shared some airspace with Marshall while he was infectious. She was deemed a “casual contact” of Marshall and therefore one who does not need to self-isolate for two weeks, a result that has angered some attendees forced to endure the cruelty of a fortnight in quarantine.

Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall has tested positive. Picture: Jonathan Ng

One noted that Berejiklian had spent ample time near or around Marshall during the day, including during a joint-partyroom meeting of Liberal-Nationals MPs in the morning and question time during the afternoon. He was also seen walking near her office around 5pm, though an official denied the pair actually met.

Others suggested double-standards, pointing to the recent and persistent NSW Health advice ­ordering anyone who had merely stood inside a David Jones department store, where a positive case had been identified, to isolate ­regardless of their test result.

Berejiklian, however, said health officials had screened her movements extensively. “I was interviewed and had zero contact (with Marshall),” she told reporters on Thursday. “I was there for a short time, addressed the crowd and didn’t have contact with him whatsoever.”

Her position, however, still jars with a statement issued by parliamentary officials to all MPs during the afternoon, which advised that anyone who had any contact, of any kind, with Marshall should get tested and self-isolate “until further public health advice”.

“Contact would include speaking directly to the member, being in a room with the member, passing the member in a corridor, sharing a lift or otherwise being in close proximity to the member.”